When Jose Mourinho decided he had a problem with Ashley Cole’s performances for Chelsea, he knew just where to turn. It wasn’t to another left back.

Mourinho had an understudy on the staff in Ryan Bertrand, but had a better idea. He wanted more than just a like-for-like replacement. He wanted to replicate Cole’s quality, too. So over from right back came Cesar Azpilicueta. He has been outstanding this season, arguably the most effective full back in the league.

Branislav Ivanovic has proven equally versatile in recent seasons. He has been preferred on occasions at right back, or centre half, often at the expense of positional specialists. Successive Chelsea managers have decided it is better to have a good player who adapts in the role rather than just a dull peg that fits.

Switching flanks: Cesar Azpilicueta (second left) has been one of the best left backs in the Premier League since swapping from the right

Mr Versatile: Branislav Ivanovic (right) is utilised as both a right back ad a centre half at Chelsea

Cup lift can be crucial

FA Cup football gets bottom clubs relegated. That is the dismal logic. Then how to explain Sheffield United’s rise from the foot of League One?

They had taken 25 points from 24 matches before the FA Cup third round, at an average of 1.04. Since going on their giant-killing quest they have collected 19 points from nine, and risen to mid-table.

Sunderland, also, have gone from averaging 0.7 points per game before the FA Cup began to 1.6 points per game during their run to the quarter-finals.

Winning is a habit, too, and builds confidence — the very quality most failing teams lack. Fielding weakened teams, by contrast, is defeatist. That is what gets a club relegated.

So why the grumbles over the abundance
of wingers in Roy Hodgson’s England squad? Great. We’ve solved the
support striker problem.

Who
says England must go to Brazil this summer with players arriving like
animals on Noah’s ark, always two by two? Why must there always be two
right backs, two left backs, four strikers, four wingers, four central
defenders? What if your numbers don’t add up? Hodgson’s don’t.

He
has as many as six wide players who could justify a place in the
England team on form and two good strikers. So why should his squad find
room for players who are not international standard, and leave more
gifted individuals at home? Such blind conformity makes no sense.

Hodgson
is blessed with crackerjack wide players. So utilise them. Right now,
who would you trust to take a chance in the last minute against Italy:
Raheem Sterling or Andy Carroll, Adam Lallana or Danny Welbeck?

On form: Raheem Sterling has been an inspiration for Liverpool this season, netting seven times, including this strike in the 3-0 win at Southampton

Making the grade: Adam Lallana (right) fully justified his first cap against Chile and looks a shoo-in to make Roy Hodgson's final 23-man squad

There
is no reason why this modern generation of wingers cannot revitalise
England in the finals, as happened towards the end of the qualifiers.
Andros Townsend fired the campaign into late life, yet he is the one
some believe will be left behind this summer. Why? To make way for
Carroll, Welbeck or Jermain Defoe?

Wingers can be match winners, too, and have been for years.

Harry
Redknapp, 67 last Sunday, was still a schoolboy attending training
sessions at Tottenham Hotspur when he was introduced to Double-winning
manager Bill Nicholson.

‘Well,
I only know one great winger who didn’t score goals and that was
Stanley Matthews,’ Nicholson continued, brusquely. ‘Unless you’re going
to be as good as him, you’d better start scoring.’

Nothing
has changed. In the goal-scoring pecking order, the wingers sit behind
the strikers and ahead of the attacking central midfield players.
Strikers can play wide, wingers can move inside. And one look at the
form of Hodgson’s flank players suggests he would be as well relying on
them as on many of his strikers.

Daniel Sturridge and Wayne Rooney are expected to be England’s starting forwards in Brazil, and merit inclusion.

Their
deputies, however, are yet to convince. Welbeck has scored eight goals
for England, a good return from 20 appearances, but four of those were
against San Marino and Moldova at home, and three were in friendly
matches.

His only international goal in a competitive fixture against a
team in FIFA’s top 100 came against Sweden in the Euro 2012 finals.

Deceptive: Danny Welbeck has netted eight times in 20 games for England, scoring in abundance against lowly opponents like San Marino

Welbeck
has scored nine goals for Manchester United this season — better than
the sorry two he achieved last year — but at least three of Hodgson’s
wing options are operating at roughly the same rate.

Lallana
has eight for Southampton, Sterling seven for Liverpool and
Sunderland’s Adam Johnson — not included in this squad — has nine.

Alex
Oxlade-Chamberlain has scored three times for Arsenal — but did not
play a game between August 17 and January 13 — while Townsend has just
two goals for Tottenham.

He
is, however, the most conventional winger in the squad, aside from
James Milner, who also has two goals for Manchester City this season but
is the wide player Hodgson uses when defence is his priority.

Inspirational: Andros Townsend revived England's fortunes in Group H, with storming performances against Montenegro and Poland

Outcast: Adam Johnson was a surprise exclusion from the squad to face Denmark given his recent fine form in a Sunderland shirt

What of
Carroll, the striker Hodgson says he may wait for? He last scored on
April 27, 2013, although he has missed the bulk of this season through
injury.

Other aspects of
his game have kept their end up, though. Since March 2, 2013, Carroll
has played 16 games, scored four goals, earned five bookings and been
sent off.

An
occupational hazard for a battering ram striker, one might say. Yet
referees at World Cup tournaments are notoriously intolerant of bruising
physicality. Carroll is a caution waiting to happen. So why offer the
bait? Why not go at the opposition with qualities likely to win
free-kicks rather than concede them? Skill. Pace.

Not as Plan A, obviously. That involves the Rooney-Sturridge partnership and a wide supply.

Yet
surplus wingers could double as reserve forwards. Would England really
have more chance with Carroll rather than Sterling, Lallana or
Oxlade-Chamberlain in support?

Route one: Andy Carroll offers an aerial threat, but his height and physicality also the danger of conceding free kicks

Some of the greatest players, from Lionel Messi to Sir Tom Finney, switched between the roles. It should not be that if Lallana goes, Sterling stays home, or no room can be found for the blossoming Johnson.

It is an English trait that we think in these straight lines.

We
are confused by a player such as Phil Jones, who could operate in a
variety of roles in defence and midfield, and end up bemused about his
best position.

It was
the same with Ledley King, Rio Ferdinand, even Jamie Carragher, all of
whom had the ability to play either at the back or in defensive
midfield, but were quickly pigeon-holed in a way players are not on the
continent.

Look at the
rebirth of Philipp Lahm at Bayern Munich under Pep Guardiola; that shows
what can be achieved with imagination. If English football is still
waiting, fingers crossed, for Carroll, it shows nothing has changed.

A change of scenery: Philipp Lahm (centre) has been sensational for Bayern Munich since switching from right back

the thinker: Pep Guardioa (centre) has rejuvenated Lahm's career

He
is a good Premier League player, and important to West Ham United, but
the idea that wingers are only there to put the ball on his head is
horribly outdated. We should be able to incorporate every one of these
flying machines in Hodgson’s World Cup squad, with no good man left
behind.

It is ironic.

One minute we bemoan the lack of talent, the next we haven’t got room for it all.

Make your minds up, gentlemen.

Coates fuels fire

Peter Coates, the chairman of Stoke City, says he is disgusted by the FA decision to charge Charlie Adam for a stamp on Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud.

The incident was missed by match referee Mike Jones but three adjudicators have looked at it and said there is a case to answer.

Coates regards this as appalling.

If Adam is found guilty, therefore, Coates will not waste time wondering why one of his players was so riled in this way.

He will blame the FA and won’t consider the fractious relationship that has developed between Stoke and Arsenal since Aaron Ramsey’s leg was broken by a foul tackle from defender Ryan Shawcross in 2010.

Caught on camera: Television replays show Charlie Adam stamping on Olivier Giroud during the second half of Saturday's match at the Britannia Stadium

Get up: Adam tries to encourage Giroud to get on with the game as he lies stricken on the turf

Despite
Shawcross being shown a red card, despite video evidence showing his
foot coming over the top of the ball — whether intentionally or not —
and despite Ramsey not playing for Arsenal again for more than a year,
Stoke still behave as if Shawcross was the victim that day.

Coates, as chairman, could play this tawdry history down. Instead, before the teams met on Saturday, he fuelled the animosity.

‘We
have this thing with Arsenal,’ he said. ‘We were very disappointed with
how the Shawcross incident was treated. It was unfair. Ryan seemed to
be singled out.’

Coates
didn’t even have to mention Shawcross. He could have built bridges by
simply noting how important Ramsey has been for Arsenal this season,
expressing thanks that his career is now back on course.

Instead he chose to add to an atmosphere of rancour and poison. And now Stoke are in the dock again.

It’s a mystery, all right.

UEFA fiddle while Bayern kill German football

Bayern Munich are 20 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga table after just 23 games.

They average 2.8 points per match, compared to the 1.9 from nearest rival Borussia Dortmund.

Next season Munich will take Dortmund’s best striker, Robert Lewandowski, on a free transfer, having already deprived them of Mario Gotze. They are also interested in Dortmund midfielder Ilkay Gundogan.

Carry on this way and very soon German domestic football, and a league that had been won by four different clubs in the last seven seasons, will be dead. Munich beat Schalke 5-1 at the weekend.

Pulling power: Bayern Munich lured Mario Gotze (right) last summer and now lead the Bundesliga by an astonishing 20 points

Heading south: Robert Lewandowski will follow former team-mate Gotze into Bavaria in summer

Schalke’s little gem, Julian Draxler, played for 78 minutes. He is leaving in the summer, too, it seems. Arsenal
were interested but since then Munich have appeared on the radar. So it
continues. The good news is that Munich’s supremacy may finally expose
the ill-conceived lunacy of financial fair play.

Setting an example? The Bundesliga, hailed by UEFA chief Michel Platini as a beacon of fairness, is becoming a one-sided farce

If
Michel Platini succeeds in killing one of the greatest leagues in
Europe, if the crowds begin to dwindle as Munich’s unmatchable strength
grows, if talent begins to drain from the land as German players realise
unless they play in Bavaria they will never win, maybe the arguments
against UEFA’s competition wreckers will become so obvious, so
irresistible, that FFP will die. We wish. Munich’s power is particularly
dangerous as the club is intent on a German identity.

Barcelona
and Real Madrid have always been international in outlook. Their
biggest stars are foreign: Lionel Messi, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo,
Gareth Bale.

Munich
love Franck Ribery but their ideal has always been the German
powerhouse. It is the home players who are given positions of prominence
at the club in retirement, not the imports.

So,
by the time they have bought the best from every rival, and those
rivals have been prevented from investing heavily in order to match
them, what is left?

Jurgen
Klopp — Dortmund coach and sure to leave soon because who wants to lose
a league by 20 points and counting? — has compared the Bundesliga to
Scotland.

Some thought
he meant in the days of Old Firm domination. He didn’t. He was referring
to Scotland now. One club, Celtic, that is so unhealthily strong its
competitors are powerless.

Yet
this week, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino held up Klopp’s
Dortmund as the model of a club that had succeeded within the rules of
financial fair play.

Succeeded
in being 0.9 points per game behind Munich every weekend, succeeded in
selling or losing its best players to them; succeeded in being
steamrollered as the Bundesliga slides towards irrelevance. Just how
UEFA designed it.

And while we're at it

Vincent Tan, the owner of Cardiff City, gave an inspirational speech to his players before Sunday’s game at Tottenham. So inspiring, in fact, that they only lost 1-0. ‘He had encouraging words for the group and you could see they appreciated it,’ said manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

It now transpires the encouragement was not a Churchillian address but the offer of a £3.7million bonus to stay up. As bonuses have to be registered at the Premier League before the season starts, this amounts to an illegal inducement.

Incentive: Vincent Tan promised Cardiff players a £3.7m pot should the club avoid relegation from the Premier League

Tan will now have to explain his conduct to the Premier League, although if they really wanted to punish Cardiff they would rule that he counsels the team every week.

Meanwhile, Solskjaer, who has earned four points from eight matches since taking charge, has revealed that he has sought advice from the greats of the game. ‘Everyone just says, “Be yourself”,’ he revealed. This seems bizarre. As Solskjaer’s Cardiff would aggregate 19 points per season and relegation with a bullet, perhaps he might like to try being someone else.

Maybe his predecessor Malky Mackay, who in the eight corresponding fixtures that Solskjaer has played, collected nine points.